In a world where music often serves as a backdrop to our lives, few artists manage to infuse their craft with the raw and unrelenting spirit of their homeland like Jamala. A beacon of resilience amidst ongoing strife, this iconic Ukrainian singer captivated the hearts of millions when she triumphed at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with her hauntingly beautiful anthem, “1944.” The song is not just a melody; it is a poignant reminder of Ukraine’s turbulent history and the enduring spirit of the Crimean Tatars.
In our interview, Jamala delves deep into the traumas of her family history—stories of deportation, survival, and the indomitable human will to overcome adversity. She reflects on her childhood memories, suffused with love and laughter, yet shadowed by the narrative of loss. As Ukraine faces relentless aggression, Jamala channels her roots into her music, forging a powerful connection between its ancestral legacy and its current reality.
An interview by Sofia Tchkonia www.instagram.com/sofiatchkonia / www.sofiatchkonia.com
All photos by @ericakabaeva
Follow Jamala via www.instagram.com/jamalajaaa
Navigating the challenges of life as both an artist and a mother during wartime, Jamala’s reflections reveal a profound understanding of identity, family, and the urgency of peace. She reminds us that music can serve as a conduit for empathy, understanding, and the fierce hope that drives all those longing for freedom. In this exclusive interview, learn how Jamala turns her pain into purpose, using her voice not only to advocate for her homeland but to inspire a global audience to act in solidarity with Ukraine.
J: I think that writing a book or making a movie about my entire family, about my family, would be such a drama. Despite this, my childhood and my family were very happy. In Crimea, all my memories are one big feast, with lots of delicious food, lots of music, lots of sisters, brothers, summer, sea… It’s always some kind of gathering. I remember our house… and it was never like there were mom, dad, me, and my sister. We were never just the four of us. Every evening, when my grandparents came to us for dinner, our gathering would start with memories of the deportation. In my childhood, like all children, teenagers, I admit, it annoyed me: why do we always have to talk about the bad things, remember those times? Grandpa would say: Here you have pilaf, flatbreads on your table, but we didn’t have bread. But over time, when I had just entered music school, I was 14 when I returned for the weekends, it all became much more important. I started asking questions myself and learning details: how they were deported, what time they came, what food they managed to take, what the soldiers said, I was already interested in memories and details. So, yes, our family was full of stories, stories from the past. I consider myself a happy person because I have a strong foundation, which I didn’t just appear out of nowhere. No, I have a history, I definitely know where I come from. Overall, modern psychological problems: I don’t know myself, can’t find myself – it’s also about families, because, unfortunately, people sometimes lack a sense of family. And it’s not just about “mom/dad” – it’s about your history, family ties, memories that you never knew and will never know unless you ask questions. So for me, talking about Crimea – it’s talking about Crimea that I might not have known, that I would like to learn about, how I would imagine it, how I dream of seeing it. It’s my super dream, when our family is in great relationships with each other, it’s always a feast, food, and music.
Your family. And not just your family, Crimean Tatars, I read about your grandfather, they were expelled, there were constant persecutions, deportations. Did this influence the formation of your personality, the need to break through, the need to prove, to be strong? Did the history of your family affect your path in life?
J: Probably. I never live with the thought that my desire to fight was passed to me from my ancestors, I don’t think about it, but surely there is something in it. It’s not by chance that I became interested in music and started singing at the age of three. My first album, which I recorded in Crimea, was in the Crimean Tatar language. I was 9 years old and my solfeggio teacher invited me to Simferopol, to the radio station, and it was broadcast on the radio for a long time. And it was really important for me, a story connected to my roots. Again, after the occupation, when in 2014, perhaps we didn’t feel enough that the enemy was so close, closer than ever before. Maybe we were a bit infantile at that moment. I’m not talking about myself, but about the general mood. And only now, in 2022, when a full-scale invasion began, we clearly remembered 2014 and understood that it was logical if you live in your apartment, and your neighbour comes to the next room and says, “Alright, I like it here, I’ll be living here.” And you think: “Okay, live.” And you don’t feel threatened, seriously? Because there was none in life before. I think that this inherited fight is my character, my mentality. Moreover, when I started putting together the QIRIM album, which was released this year, it’s an album of ancient Crimean Tatar songs, I learned even more about my culture, people, and history, because of these songs… And the concept is: each song (14 songs) comes from a different city in Crimea: Yalta, Simferopol, Sevastopol, Jankoy, Kerch. So, we see this island from different cities. And what do we see: in this city, Crimean Tatars lived by the sea, they thought in a certain way, they had such a mentality, and here are Crimean Tatars from the steppes – they were a bit different, and those from the mountains, they were completely different. But what I found, which I didn’t expect, is like I’m some Steve Jobs who invented the iPhone, that in each song, in any case, there is a line about love, loneliness, a thought that I will fight, I will be free, it’s not by chance that Crimean Tatars from different corners, they all had something in common: a fight for truth, I will never betray you – it’s all in the songs. It’s not by chance, you could say it’s in my blood. Some people can’t tolerate lactose, and I have this intolerance to injustice. And when I see it, I can’t stay silent. Yes, of course, it’s easier to just be a singer, wear a beautiful dress, come out, smile, and be a beautiful girl on screen. It was very difficult for me during these 10 years of occupation, 3 years of full-scale war, when now I’m even listed on Russia’s wanted list, it’s not easy… but it’s war, who has it easy now? No one. And I believe that every person in their country, in their home, is a citizen of their country, who defends the basic right to live in their own land.
From the beginning of the war, you have been travelling a lot around the world, engaging in fundraising. Thanks to you, people have learned more about Ukraine, about Ukrainian music, among other things. In the beginning, people abroad showed more interest and willingness to help than they do now. What is the reason for this?
J: I think adapting to war is quite logical. We’ve gotten used to it. I’m not saying it’s normal, it’s abnormal, but we’re moving forward, we’re raising money, businesses are opening in the country, people are thinking of ways to earn more to help more, we’re not stopping. I don’t get tired of travelling a lot, talking about Ukraine everywhere, singing concerts, raising funds, but at the same time, I never tire of thanking every country I’ve been to: in Australia, in Washington, in Paris. Wherever I go, I never tire of thanking people first and foremost. The political path will always be difficult; it will never be easy: you vote, and that’s it. But people are already helping: they open their doors, they provide food, they temporarily accommodate displaced women, and all of this deserves our attention and love. Our task, in my view, is to preserve this love and attention. It’s quite logical that Europe and America have gotten used to it, and we are hardly in the news anymore. They can’t wake up every morning to our destruction, deaths. They have festivals in the summer, life goes on for them, while we suffer, while we fight. It’s very hard to explain to people. Imagine this situation: I arrive in Iceland, Reykjavik.
UNICEF for Kids concert, raising money for children. It’s my first time in Iceland: it’s so beautiful, the moss, the geysers. How do I explain to these people that people are dying where we are from? It’s very far for them; they’re not touched by this pain. Just as I was in Reykjavik, the Mariupol occupation was happening. I was live on air, and what I said then was: imagine, in Iceland there are 430,000 people right now, in Mariupol – 500,000 people are without food, without water (the parents of a musician we work with were melting snow and that’s how they survived for 10 days), and unofficial data suggest that 100,000 people have died. When I said this, I saw how their faces changed. I think comparisons with us, real-life examples, telling stories, not forgetting, maybe that’s the only way. Russian propaganda works every day: they make movies, they get Oscars for documentaries, they’re constantly doing something. We need to do twice as much. We should make a film about Bucha, I don’t know how… starring Monica Bellucci, to show all this horror. Because we need some counter-propaganda, we need Guy Ritchie, these people, I don’t know how we can reach them, scripts based on real events, with mass graves in Bucha, we need to show them. Yes, it sounds very cynical: showing these stories, filming them, but I believe that’s the only method that worked after the Second World War. All films – “Schindler’s List” is brilliant, and you understand that you never want that to happen again because you’ve seen these stories. How many movies about the Holocaust, the First and Second World Wars? What’s the point of all this? It’s like a legacy for the future: “Never again!”
But we are now witnessing that “never again” is happening again in Ukraine. I’m speaking simply as a musician, from my heart, as a patriot, I’m saying what I feel, what I see when I go out, what do they lack? They lack information. This can be done through music, too. I was invited to the closing ceremony at the Kennedy Centre Honours, and I awarded the group U2 for their contribution to American music. It’s like going into space: I awarded the group U2 for their contribution to American music and sang a U2 song for U2 with Irish performer Hozier and country singer Brandi Carlile. It was an event. And I added lines from the Ukrainian anthem to that song, which became a statement: the last song of the ceremony, on Christmas, January 25, watched by all Americans. It’s a small victory, but it’s a drop. Movies have great power, in politics, diplomacy, of course. In my opinion, these are still living stories that we need to show, develop, and not forget. The worst thing we can do now is say, “We’re tired, whatever will be, will be,” and so on. We just won’t be here anymore, and that’s it.
You are a strong personality. Do you have moments of fear?
J: 100%. I can be lost. Such a moment for me was when I flew from Sydney to Kiev for filming a Christmas concert, we filmed the concert, and then I saw in the news that I was arrested in Moscow without me, and then put on an international wanted list. Honestly, I don’t know what happened to me, but I was scared. I saw people supporting in the comments, congratulating, saying it’s cool, but I have no idea what to do, and I’m scared. I’m not scared for myself, I chose this path myself: I speak freely about everything I want, what I think about everyone, I’m not a singer at court, with somebody, I am a free person, relaying my world, the pain I’ve been through, but I’m very scared for the children. We know that this bandit, terrorist power – they have long had no boundaries, they have long been acting like terrorists, bandits. Of course, I’m scared for my family, parents, for the children. If they catch me somewhere at the border, of course, I would hope that my country would stand up for me, I would like that. Just like for a citizen of Ukraine.
What was the most memorable moment of your life?
J: I can talk about a state that I felt for the first time: it was February 24, 2022, when at 5 in the morning I was woken up by my husband, Bekir, and he said that it had finally started: Russia had attacked us. This had never happened before: my body froze, felt frozen, like I was in a whirlwind. I felt like I was walking very quickly into my oldest son’s room, the youngest was sleeping with me, but I still felt like I was walking too slowly. I don’t know what that state was. They say it was a state of shock. Gradually, a couple of hours later, I filmed a video in the kitchen, at home, and addressed the Russians, we were still addressing them, saying that this couldn’t be, what was happening. 5 million people watched me then, even though I had up to 1 million subscribers. At that moment, it was a turning point, when I realised: I am being watched. I can relay everything. With my children, as we were driving in the car, at first we went to stay overnight with friends in Ternopil, then there was an explosion there, and then I drove them to the Romanian border, said goodbye to my husband, and then my sister’s friends drove in a car from Istanbul to the Romanian border, and took me from Romania, through Bulgaria, to Istanbul.
And at that moment, I was making stories, and I remember that people were in shock; they couldn’t comprehend, even the Russians, with all their propaganda, were in shock. At that moment, you feel like a lioness. You’re not Jamala the singer, you’re just a mother. I left my children with my sister at home and left. It was the beginning of the first fundraisers, Berlin, March 3, where we raised 67 million Euros. At that moment, when no one else was giving concerts, I was scared to go on stage, thought people would judge, that there was a war, and she was singing. I was very scared to go out. I didn’t even prepare for this concert, I didn’t bring a costume, and I didn’t have a microphone. It didn’t feel like a performance at all; it was more like mourning, the wail of a woman who had to raise money for her country today. And that set off a wave of charity not just from me, but artists in general saw that this works and this is how things can be done. At that moment, I felt like my profession was over, I was no longer a singer, I could never write music, but I managed to pull myself together and all my sorrow: someone hugs trees, someone screams – for me that was the stage: it was both my tree and my psychologist.
What gives you the strength to continue?
J: The result. The result motivates me. Perhaps it’s too cliché… In Australia, they asked me: how do you assess that your progress is not very successful? First of all, who are you in Sydney to be asking questions about our soldiers who give their lives, and saying that something is not right there… You are not the one. You don’t know what’s happening there. And I don’t know, because I’m not a soldier, not a politician, I’m a musician, and I can know what’s happening in my sphere, my way: through music. There’s a podcast on the BBC about war and music, but to all the others who are tired and think there’s no result, you’re just not looking carefully. What you want to see only happens in movies. Unfortunately, this is not a movie; people are dying, and a lot of them. You can’t say whether we are making enough progress or not. We always lack weaponry — that’s a fact, because if we had enough weaponry, we would have won a long time ago. The courage of our people, the motivation of our people to fight for what’s theirs — it inspires me, it doesn’t let me relax. I went to sing to the soldiers in the unit and they really inspired me. There was a moment when I thought I had done everything possible and didn’t know what else I could do. They inspired me a lot. I think if you are disappointed and lack motivation, I think you are looking in the wrong place.
Who would you like to sing with?
J: I had a story with Spotify Singles. Spotify Singles invited me to sing a world cover to get into their chart, which at that time already featured Celine Dion, Harry Styles, and Miley Cyrus. You choose one cover from a world star and a cover of your own song. I chose Madonna’s song Frozen. And it wasn’t a coincidence. It was important to me that Madonna was one of the first to support us. And now, during her tours, she constantly comes out with a yellow-blue flag. Of course, she’s a super icon. She’s one of those musicians who are not just great musicians with good lyrics and music; she’s the person who always has something to say. She has always been for women, for LGBTQ rights, and for me, she is an example, quite provocative, of not supporting the majority opinion. Madonna is cool. Lady Gaga, who also faced criticism for her pro-Ukrainian position. I have a huge range of music that I listen to and musicians that I love, from Stevie Wonder, who is a music god to me, to Erykah Badu, Bruno Mars, many soul musicians, and pop-soul musicians. I don’t even know who to highlight right now. If it were a duet… The Weeknd. I feel like we would create something cool musically. Among European singers who have become global and whom I admire is Rosalía, she’s really cool, a very magical singer who has brought traditional folklore, flamenco, into modern music — that’s a cool case. I’m very open to any music and collaborations that resonate with me, when you meet a musician and realise that you think and feel the same way.
If you had the opportunity to meet Madonna and explain to her what Ukraine is, what would you say to her?
J: Ukraine is a country with an incredible, ancient history that is constantly fighting for the right to exist, live, and speak its language. We are always fighting. It’s like trying to get to the top of a chart where you’re competing for first place, only it’s much harder. We are fighting for the right to exist and be called who we are — Ukrainians, to defend our traditions. But historically, our neighbour constantly wants to tell us that we didn’t exist, that everything belongs to him because we are very attractive, talented, and our greatest wealth — the people — are very open, talented in all areas: art, sculpture, music, architecture, and economy. We live in our country, which we are building as best as we can. Maybe we lack some knowledge, economic stability, but we are brave, and we are on our land.
